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Rhythm break

Sound
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A deliberate disruption in a poem’s metrical pattern for emphasis

Detailed Definition
Rhythm break is a deliberate disruption in a poem’s metrical flow—via caesura, dash, line break, or unexpected stress—that creates emphasis, hesitation, or emotional rupture; Dickinson’s dashes and Eliot’s fragmented cadences in “Prufrock” use this technique to mirror psychological fragmentation and modern anxiety.
Example
Example in poetry:
Emily Dickinson’s dash creates a rhythm break: “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain— / And then a Plank in Reason, broke”; Whitman’s sudden pause: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. / Silence.”; Plath’s line break in “Daddy”: “I think I may well be a Jew. / I have always been scared of you”; Eliot’s caesura in “Prufrock”: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
Additional Notes
Rhythm break interrupts expected meter with a pause, substitution, or silence—creates emphasis, surprise, or mimics breath; used strategically in free verse and sprung rhythm to heighten expression.
Also Known As
Metrical pause rhythmic caesura cadential halt syncopated break Foot interruption Metrical break
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